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The right to stink in public

Richard Stallman, Eric Raymond, Sam Varghese and all the bearded FOSS Ayatollahs somehow remind me of a bunch of brats claiming their moral right to cr@p their pants and stink in public. I'd say go on, take your steaming dump. Only don't be surprised if folks move away from you.

@padrian. I'm running an IT business relying 100% on GNU/Linux and FOSS. I don't own any Apple products, neither iPhone nor iPod nor iPad. The only non-free software that's running in my office are a couple of Windows sandboxes I use for fiddling with Samba. And yes, I've even read Stallman's biography, and I subscribe to the man's views on software. But that doesn't mean he's allowed to behave like a tactless jerk.

Aside note: a friend of mine who is running a local radio station (I'm living in South France) once hosted RMS for a weekend. Afterwards, he confessed the experience was "a nightmare" and that RMS was "something between a diva and a three-year-old".

Well kikinovak, whatever Stallman's faults he's definately not a hypocrite. His message regarding Steve Jobs and Apple has been completely consistent.

As Sam says on page 2.

Quoting:But then, remember, he was saying this about the former chief executive of a company that is at the forefront of trying to prevent its competitors from bringing products to market by using patent suits; a company that sues at the drop of a hat; a company that tries to dictate everything to its users including the type of songs and books they buy; and a company that enjoys restricting its users hardware upgrade options.

In that context, one cannot really see anything incorrect with what Stallman said. He may have put it in direct language - would it have been any better if it was couched in bizspeak?

At no point did he say that he was glad that Jobs had died; indeed, he took care to point out that nobody really deserved to die.

Of course, it wasn't politically correct to write such an eulogy. But then when has Stallman been politically correct? Had he been concerned about what people think about him, where would those who care about software freedom be?

Stallman has nothing to be ashamed about; if only some of the hypocrites in the FOSS ranks were half as direct, we would live in a much better world.

1. Stallman has every right to express his opinion (not that you said he couldn't).

2. What he has said with respect to Apple and Steve Jobs, in my opinion anyway, is extremely accurate.

3. I believe Tracyanne is spot on: Stallman is consistent where FOSS is concerned. Personally, I think he is totally honest.

4. Whether it gets up your nostrils or not, Stallman's opinion of the situation needed to be said. In my opinion, Apple is now the Unix equivalent of Microsoft in the computing world and the company's use of any method, legal, patents, etc. to block competition and innovation is utterly disgusting.

5. And for the record, I support Stallman's concepts completely. I have total sympathy for Steve Jobs in the manner of his death: I won a similar fight with colonic cancer 10 years ago and have a personal horror of the disease, its stresses, pain, despair and I have seen what happens to others......I do not want to open that door again.....BUT, equally, I loathe what Steve Jobs has done to create the "Apple Evil Empire" and what his company continues to do to suppress any legitimate competition, while respecting the man for his initiative, innovation and glimpses of the future.......Nevertheless, I echo Stallman's comment in my own words: may his successors lose the horrible ethos and morality of the present Apple empire.

If Stallman's merit boils down to not being a hypocrite, well, there's nothing more to be said. Sometimes in life, common decency expects us to veil our immediate feelings. You can't just blurt out in public everything that goes through your mind, or else you're something in between an emotional idiot and a psychopath.

Following that logic, next time I'll have a public conference (on Saturday October 22nd, about FOSS surprisingly) I'll just take the freedom to fart and belch loudly between sentences. And when folks stare at me in protest, I'll just shrug my shoulders without an apology and say, well, at least I'm not being a hypocrite.

Quoting: You can't just blurt out in public everything that goes through your mind, or else you're something in between an emotional idiot and a psychopath.

Personally, I think you are totally wrong as to the Stallman message being a "spur of the moment" pronouncement. I strongly suspect that the pronouncement that Stallman made was meditated upon over a number of years.

Quoting: Following that logic, next time I'll have a public conference (on Saturday October 22nd, about FOSS surprisingly) I'll just take the freedom to fart and belch loudly between sentences. And when folks stare at me in protest, I'll just shrug my shoulders without an apology and say, well, at least I'm not being a hypocrite.

That's your privilege of course, but will you be thought of as anything other than gross, bad mannered and insulting to the audience ? Stallman did not condemn the man, he politely condemned his actions - he did not resort to your methods of "impressing the listeners with eructations". Like it or not, Stallman had every right to do so and for legitimate reasons.

I'll resign myself to the fact that our respective definitions of politeness (that is, taking into account and respect another person's feelings) diverge considerably. If Richard Stallman is being "polite", as you say, then Linus Torvalds is my little sister. And I have nothing more to add to this argument.

Here we go again, rallying 'round to defend the free software movement's biggest liability. Maybe one of you bearded Ayatollah wannabes can explain how being the world's biggest jerk wins people to free software? After all, complete honesty means being judgmental and hypercritical, right? So when I say you're morons and fools you shouldn't get mad. You should thank me for opening your eyes to your own monstrous deficiencies.

@tuxchick:
He who creates great software is seldom equally gifted at interpersonal relations. Same for science. Same for math. It's the flip side of the coin that made Jobs a great marketer of other peoples' inventions.

With no invention there is nothing to market. With no marketer, the Stallmans of the technoworld will drive the customers away. We need them both.

I see you have a personal grunge against rms. We are not taking about his personal habits or the fact that rms cannot be categorize into some dull social pattern on how to be or behave. We are not talking about rms being a diva or a three-year-old or the fact that is fat or have beard. But I assure you that rms is pure genius. You are _free_ to take on him personally but you are not making any point here. By the way, you know... even Steve got the idea about "stay hungry stay foolish".

We need to respect rms's political statement, we have to fight for our freedom, for software freedom and the results we be beyond our wildest dreams. If you don't get it that rms work is beyond your little IT company what can I say....

In my very humble opinion, Stallman has won "hands down". This thread thoroughly demonstrates (well, in my view anyhow), that we none of us would be thinking and commenting the way we are unless Stallman had made his statement. I think/hope it has forced serious thought about Steve Jobs and Apple and what that firm is doing to IT and especially IP. The attempts by Apple to sabotage Samsung using such broad patents on pads that even a blackboard and an old school slate could be included in Apple's patent coverage, shows the lengths to which this disgusting company will go in order to create a monopoly. There is a book by C.S.Lewis on my shelf which sums up how I feel about this situation where Lewis explains how a deeply ethical and caring man can still go to war (with all that means). Lewis writes that you can care deeply for the good of your enemy but hate his actions.

I don't claim that Stallman was thinking along those lines of course, how can I ? But it's certainly how I am thinking. Really, it all boils down to whether or not you are offended by Stallman stating what I perceive to be the truth so soon after Job's death......but then if he had said it 10 years later, nobody would be getting their "knickers in a twist" and probably/possibly most of you would be nodding your heads in agreement. Conversely, 10 years down the track, who cares ? Stallman got maximum impact for the truth of his statement by making it so soon after Job's death and as Sam Varghese says in his last sentence:

Quoting:Stallman has nothing to be ashamed about; if only some of the hypocrites in the FOSS ranks were half as direct, we would live in a much better world.

Nobody disagrees that Stallman got maximum impact by saying what he said when he said it. Thing is, "impact" covers a lot of ground. The Japanese got a lot of impact from 12/7/41 and Al Qaeda got a lot of impact from 9/11/01.

@ Dinotrac......absolutely, couldn't agree more, and on that aspect I refer you to my second paragraph above and the "knickers in a twist" sentence. I think those who are offended by his statement are motivated by the fact that he said it virtually within a day or so of Job's death......In that respect, insensitive and quite a bit crass, yes - but in my opinion, also very accurate.

Look ! I have never been attracted to the utterly purist stance of RMS. I'm a pragmatist and while I love Linux, I also use Win-based software where I have to (and it is rarely) - the end justifies the means as long as I am the only one who gets hurt but I would be rejected out of hand by RMS. I am not a devotee of RMS and in some ways I find his behaviour a bit much at times. But the man is brutally honest where his FOSS principles are concerned and I don't think he gives a d@mn who he offends as long as he stands up and is counted for his beliefs on the matter.

I do think though, that you are being very, very unfair in equating RMS with the two "groups" in your last sentence. RMS is motivated by very different reasons from either of them.

> You're not being polite to the dead, you're being polite to the living left behind.

Then state it that way. So, I guess we should only speak well of people like Hitler and Stalin also? Or do we have a standard written down somewhere that draws the line as to who we can malign after death and those we cannot?

And no, I'm not equating Jobs with either of those two people. Nor am I saying they shouldn't be maligned.

@Jdixon.......I think that if you carry your ethical stance to its ultimate conclusion, you are saying to the courts that lawyers and witnesses must not have the freedom to speak the truth as they understand it (or otherwise) in case it hurts others - and courts are very public indeed. I believe there is a high profile case in America right now where a death is involved and I don't think anyone will pull any punches no matter who is upset, close family or otherwise. I don't think you would want that impediment on justice......and the USA's right of free speech is too precious.

Frankly though, this whole thing is now out of kilter......let's get back to computing. And if you want to blow up a storm let's talk about Apple lock-in and misuse of patents. Plenty of scope there for debate.

Quoting:You're not being polite to the dead, you're being polite to the living left behind.

There is polite and there is hypocritical. Politeness calls for not speaking in a manner that is disrepectful to the greiving living. Not being hypocritical means speaking the truth about the dead person. Stallman was blunt and truthful, he did not disrespect the greiving living. He said he was glad the man was gone, not thst he was glad the man was dead. Indeed he specifically said he was not glad the man was dead.

Quoting:Because most of them have grieving relatives who are morning their loss. You're not being polite to the dead, you're being polite to the living left behind.

Indeed probably most here have. I don't know about you, but I would have been very insulted had people come up to me and said things about my father that were hypocritical. He was who he was, warts and all, we did not deserve to have things said about him that were untrue or which attempted to minimise aspects of his life, and it would have been disrespectful to us to do so.

Stallman was not hypocritical, he was blunt and truthful of the man's impact on computing, and how he was glad that Job's influence was lessened. He did not speak of the man personally, and said nothing that was insulting to the family and friends.

Personally I think way too many people in the FOSS community are allowing their general dislike of all things Stallman to influence how they percieve his words in this case. They are interpolating what he said in terms of their dislike of the man.

I have already said Stallman is why I won't join the FSF, but I see no insult to either the dead Jobs or the greiving relatives. He was factual and blunt, not insulting.

> II think that if you carry your ethical stance to its ultimate conclusion, you are saying to the courts that lawyers and witnesses must not have the freedom to speak the truth as they understand it

I don't recall Stallman being called to testify about Jobs in court, do you?

Look, if you really don't understand why most people have the standards of politeness they do, then you don't. Stallman doesn't, and apparently you don't. But when people tell you that they do have those standards, and that they will judge you accordingly, you should take their word for it.

Speaking ill of the recently dead is considered rude and outside the pale of polite company. The usual response is to shun the company of those who do it, and to condemn their doing so to others. That's what is happening here. People are refusing Stallman's company, refusing to be associated with him, and making it clear that they don't condone his comments. Those are the consequences for Stallman's actions. The were quite predictable, even if Stallman himself couldn't foresee them or doesn't care about them.

Do I personally condemn Stallman for what he said? No. He honestly doesn't know any better, and is (from what I've been told), incapable of learning. He's also being entirely consistent with his past actions and statements. I might as well condemn the oak tree in our yard for shedding its leaves every fall. In addition, I've been known to be less than socially astute myself on occasion, and people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw rocks. That doesn't change the perfectly normal and predictable nature of the response from others. Nor does it render it inappropriate. Stallman is the public face of the FSF. That has drawbacks as well as benefits, and it's probably past time that the FSF considered carefully the relative worth of each.

I'm not convinced that the timing of Stallman's comments were particularly good for promoting his argument. He may be right (an I certainly agree with him), but at this point in time, he runs the risk of sounding opportunistic, his message being lost thereby.

On the other hand however, I'm sick to the back teeth of all the inappropriate and sycophantic adulation being poured upon Steve Jobs and I wouldn't be surprised if the timing and forthright nature of Stallman's statement was at least in part a reaction to just that.

@Jdixon.......this is now becoming high farce and you have interpreted my comments in a way that was never even suggested by my post. My reason to take the example of the courts was to illustrate the extreme situation that could occur given your ethical stance on blocking freedom of speech to prevent people's feelings from being hurt. It had nothing to do with Stallman in court or testifying about Jobs, and honestly, that's a red herring you have put up. All we are now doing is playing with words in an attempt to discredit an opposite opinion. However it is a fact that Stallman did NOT speak ill of Jobs himself and indicated he was not glad that Jobs had died. However, RMS specifically criticised his sphere of influence on computing. I refer you to his actual words quoted in Varghese's article and Tracyanne's post above so that you can check again.

Tracyanne has pretty much summed up how I feel on polite speech and hypocrisy (and I thank her for such a darn good summation) so again I refer you to her comment directly above. Now please, let's stop trying to point score and get on with the real reason for LXer being here, computing and Linux. If you want the satisfaction of a final post, go for it, but I have said all I want to on this subject and all my posts above can be checked for consistency of my position. Ciao, auf wiedersehn, au revoir, sayonara, cheers, etc.

> My reason to take the example of the courts was to illustrate the extreme situation that could occur given your ethical stance on blocking freedom of speech to prevent people's feelings from being hurt.

Sigh. Where have I tried to block freedom of speech? I've never tried to stop Stallman from saying anything, or suggested that others do so. People are free to say whatever they want. However, equally importantly, others are free to judge their speech and take actions based on those judgments. Freedom of speech is important, yes. But so is freedom of association.

Noting that most people consider an action outside the pale of polite company is not "blocking freedom of speech".

> My reason to take the example of the courts ... and honestly, that's a red herring you have put up.

You're the one who brought up the example of a court setting, and you object because I point out that it's not relevant, calling my point a "red herring"? Somehow, "I do not think it means what you think it means."

> ...let's stop trying to point score and get on with the real reason for LXer being here, computing and Linux.

I haven't been trying to score points. I've merely been trying to explain why people are upset by Stallman's comments. And in keeping with my comment above about my own social astutemess above, I honestly don't care one way or another whether anyone believes me or not.

However, Stallman's comments reflect directly on the FSF. How much more in the context of Free Software can we get than things which directly affect the FSF?

For Jdixon very 'specially.......I wasn't going to put anything more, but there was just a tiny bit of worry on my conscience. I have debated/discussed with you on threads in the past and loved it. I would hate to think that anything I said on the above thread was directed at you personally and if you thought so, I apologise and withdraw it instantly - nothing could have been further from my thoughts. Oh, and the point scoring was simply how it began to look to me, and if you say it wasn't, then it certainly wasn't. And I look forward to more vigorous discussions in the future - whether we agree or not - my brain always needs stimulating. :-)

How about a different take on the "sycophantic" adulation of Steve Jobs --

Wouldn't it be nice if free software folks tried learning something for a change?
As annoying as Apple lock-in and "My way or the highway" may be, people have happily spent skads of money for Apple products even when there were readily available alternatives.

Macs have never even been a majority platform. Ipods are the most popular music players, but there are loads of mp3 players out there and even (til recently) Zunes.

Maybe there's something to be said for losing the me-centric know-it-all outlook and trying to imagine what will catch people's imagination and make them WANT to use what you're doing. Heck, Firefox has done pretty well for itself, even on Windows.

Being bitter because Steve Jobs could do something that Free Software folks seem unable to grasp just seems so very small.

De nada, Ridcully. It's easy to read things that weren't intended into words. Sometimes it's even easy to say things which weren't intended. We've all been there. I didn't take anything you said personally, though I was beginning to wonder if Aussie was a foreign language for a native West Virginian. :)

I'm not bitter about Steve Jobs, I never met the man and he never really impinged on my life other than the fact that I use a Macbook Pro at work (supplied by my work). I wouldn't necessarily choose to buy one, but I find it good, reliable and well built kit and it suits me fine. It's running Linux of course.

I don't really have that big an opinion on the walled garden thing, I just don't use it so it doesn't affect me. I prefer to champion freedom and free software to those I meet.

I do find the extensive, over-the-top media coverage to be rather distasteful and I suspect that Steve Jobs would be rather embarrassed about the whole thing.

Steve Jobs was a very successful business man and extremely good at what he did. By all accounts we was not the saint that everyone paints him to be, but that is hardly the point. He ran a successful business that is making a ton of money. However, the way that the media is sucking up to his memory, and the number of famous individuals associating themselves with his name hoping that some of the press attention will rub off on them (including President Obama) is absolutely shocking.

They should canonise him and be done with it.

All that when you consider the other arguably bigger and more deserving names that have fallen by the wayside recently, hardly noticed by the general public at all. Turing was treated disgracefully during his lifetime (I know, they were different times). Dennis Richie more recently, went with hardly a murmur outside of the computing scene, having had a HUGE impact on the systems that we use now.

You can't make a movie without writers, props, wardrobe, cameras, and all the folks who make that magic happen, but it's the folks who memorize somebody else's words and look good on camera who get all the attention.

For Helios and Jdixon - "Australian English" does have colloquialisms, but is usually fairly comprehensible by vaguely English speaking countries.......LOL......I refer you both to two lines in Professor Higgin's song in the film "My Fair Lady". The song is called "Why can't the English Teach their Children How to Speak" and the lines are:

"There even are places where English completely disappears........
In America they haven't used it for years !"

That's about right good Doctor. Spending just short of 9 years in Europe, I learned that many Germans who encounter an American for the first time, are left to wonder who lied to them when teaching them English. I simply tell them that in America we don't speak English...We speak American.

when i did my exchange year in the US i heard stories from students coming back to europe, that they would get bad grades in school for using american english in english class. fortunately my teacher didn't do that, and my grades improved...

as for the difference between american and british english, it is smaller than the difference between regular german and swiss german. (swiss german tv gets subtitles translating into regular german!)

My experience (a Canadian living in Europe) is that the British have a enormously deep English language while we North Americans have a very shallow version. Even with all the British programming I was raised on in Canada, there are so many word used in Britain that I have to look up in a dictionary to figure out.

Hey Helios.........those are the CORRECT ways to spell the words.......Well done indeed. Take an extra star on the wrist and go to the top of the class !! Leaving out the "u" always seems wrong to me as well, but then I was indoctrinated on the English way of spelling at primary school some 60 years ago.........And before somebody tells me it was the dark ages, it wasn't........ but we did use slates and slate pencils - paper was too important. TV didn't appear for another 10 years and radio was all........Telephones were still the "rotate the handle and get the manual switchboard which closed down at 10pm".......sigh.

Edited update.........I can't ....just CAN'T resist this........we were using Pads of course......wooden frame and erasable writing area made of slate, you could touch them and erase the writing, and you could turn them vertical or horizontal and they still worked........See......told you it wasn't the dark ages !!!!!!!!!

Well you beat me by a few years. As I was about to start kindergarten TV was just coming into the homes around us. My first memory of it was watching Gene Autry and being dragged home by my mother for dinner.

I do remember the last of the horse drawn milk deliveries though. Watching the horse automatically take the man to the next customer.

@Cabreh.......I can still remember seeing my first TV in Canberra........on a small circular screen.....very fuzzy and in monochrome......I think it was green and white........and being totally unimpressed......Ummm.....that was about 1967/68. But I also remember the horse drawn milk deliveries, REAL steam rollers, and the sanitation carts which were necessary because in Brisbane at the time, sewerage had yet to be installed.....and that meant that the "small room" was outside in the wet.........if ever you have read Chic Sale's "The Specialist", I can STILL remember all that impllies.

@Cabreh......apparently Australian tv transmissions began in Sydney circa 1956, however I didn't ever see any television until around 1957/58 as I noted above......My apologies too........I accidentally put 1967/68 in my entry above.......I shall edit same. It was all valves of course, and "do it yourself".....I can still remember an electronics monthly periodical with full instructions, circuit diagrams etc. on building your own tv......Ahhhh.......men was men in those days.......Nowadays we quail at changing a light bulb.

I remember standing in the radio transmission room for the ABC radio network in Canberra and being absolutely awed by the output stages of the system......Huge glass water cooled valves with a double envelope through which the water coolant flowed and the anodes with glowing cherry pink patches on them........And Helios, I cannot remember watching Howdy Doody........I'm afraid I was well out of those years by the time tv was common place. Bugs Bunny, the Roadrunner and a couple of others were my favourites.

I have the benefit of growing up in one of the earliest environments for competitive cable TV, in Eastern Pennsylvania. It's still pretty competitive here. We had no less than two cable TV providers fighting for our business since the mid 1960s. My father, being a physicist, was big on having it available. I don't remember a time we didn't have cable and a color TV.

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